


Safa and Marwa

by noushig



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Damian is a baby, F/M, edward said is disappointed in me, jason is an adult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26184928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noushig/pseuds/noushig
Summary: They say the true healing power of holy water comes not from the water itself, but from the strength of the believer’s convictions. At this point, Talia just might agree.Loosely adapted from Red Hood: The Lost Days (2010) and Batman: Son of the Demon (1987).
Relationships: Talia al Ghul/Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul/Jason Todd
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Safa and Marwa

* * *

Talia remembers herself, the first night she had Bruce, rising and sinking in darkness, while he lay uncharacteristically splayed and panting. She was all satin and pink, with every appearance of an innocent, blushing bride, concealing a heart vindicated and swaggering. She recalls with more than a little fondness how he grasped at the flat of her stomach like a lifeline. She remembers the gold of her bangles glinting in the night, clinking together cheerfully as he took her fingertips in his mouth. 

Today her bangles are replaced with flimsy paper strips of various colors, encircling her wrists with barcodes and acronyms.

Ra’s cuts the umbilical cord and presents her with exactly 3.8 kilos of gold bullion. 

* * *

The smell of the mustard oil is sharp and pungent, and the odor diffuses into the air as she massages a newborn Damian, kneading the oil into his skin and stroking his little arms and legs. She can’t resist giving the soles of his feet a brief tickle when she’s done. Talia loves him so much, loves him more than anything in the universe, but she still frowns as she wipes off some of the excess oil onto her own abdomen, feeling the ribboned lacerations emanating from her pubic bone.

* * *

On the seventh day after Damian is born, one of her father’s men butchers a sheep and serves it later that evening at a party for even more of her father’s men. Talia, still weepy and bleeding through multiple pairs of underwear, puts on a brave face and meets their applause, feeling the weight of Bruce’s absence like a cloud forest fog. The father of her baby isn’t here. The father of her baby isn’t here, _and he is never to be seen again_. 

Her eyes begin to well up and she makes a quick excuse to check on Damian, her exit mostly unnoticed by Ra’s’ guests, who are already distracted with chatterings around the hookah pipe. 

She is shortly joined in the nursery by a nanny, the same one who, embarrassingly, still has to assist Talia with wiping herself on the toilet. Talia almost sends her away, before the nanny remarks warmly, “Do you know why woman was given the trial of the desert, to suffer in the wilderness with her baby, without a husband?” 

Talia wipes her runny nose with the edge of her sleeve. 

“Because mankind wouldn’t have the gift of holy water without her.”

She sends the nanny home with a plate of mutton leg. 

* * *

For the first time in months, it seems as though Damian might sleep the whole night through without crying. So, naturally, it is on this very night that Talia awakes with a start, hearing men’s muffled shouts coming from outside. 

Her father too-casually explains that one of the detective’s proteges has been killed, and that the Shadows have smuggled the young man’s body from Gotham, to be given the honor and blessing of submersion into Lazar Golu. 

* * *

Jason’s head bobs up and down frantically, shiny black hair like vinyl plastered to his forehead, limbs thrashing in glass-green water while he screams. 

* * *

For what feels like the first time in an eternity, someone else is watching the baby and Talia gets to take a bath. She finds perfumed soaps and pearly shower gels in the back of the cabinet, frivolities from another lifetime.

The hammam is completely abandoned at this time of night, and Talia decides to take advantage of the solitude and do something  _ else _ for the first time in an eternity. She lets out a long sigh and begins rhythmically stroking herself. She leans on her left elbow in repose, and casually flexes her toes as if preparing for a yoga stretch. 

She’s flushed and groaning now, sweaty from both the bathhouse steam and her own efforts. Suddenly, Talia freezes - she hears footsteps - and scrambles to cover herself with the towel. She panics; whoever’s coming must have surely heard her.

Jason appears from behind the doorway and simply stares at her, lips parted.

If she weren’t so embarrassed, Talia might go as far as to say he looks pathetic, with the bulge in his trousers and wide, dilated pupils telling her plainly that he’d been eavesdropping for a while. She feels a nagging throb between her legs; she is reminded, frustratedly, that she had gotten pretty close before this (albeit handsome) imbecile showed up to ruin her climax.

She’ll give herself some credit; so long as the towel covers her new stretch marks and extra abdominal weight, she must be quite a sight to behold for the young man. The stark white towel only emphasizes her russet skin by contrast, and the humidity of the sauna was curling her black hair into seductive tendrils.

Jason begins to approach her and she freezes once more, fearful and curious in spite of herself. He brings his face so close to hers that she can count his eyelashes. Men always have longer eyelashes than they deserve, she thinks. 

Not taking his eyes off her face, he moves his hands up and down her thighs in a soothing motion, and Talia starts to close her eyes and lean back in relaxation. However, before she can say anything, Jason has already put two of his fingers inside her, and she jolts upright with a cry. 

She grasps his shoulder with a grimace and he stops the motion of his fingers immediately. Talia winces. Rubbing herself every now and then was one thing, but she’d given birth less than 6 months ago and has been too afraid to attempt any kind of penetration again. She simply wasn’t used to it anymore, and his fingers stung and burned inside her. In fact, now that she thinks about it, that hadn’t happened since the night she and Bruce-

“Easy,” she tells him, feigning steely composure. She clutches the towel tightly to her body with her left arm and reaches back down between her thighs with her right. “Why don’t you show me exactly what you were doing back there?” 

The echo of Jason’s relieved exhale bounces off the walls as he puts his hand down his pants and starts pulling at himself. 

* * *

Jason spends a month with the Shadows in Sakha on an errand for Ra’s. Talia has mostly ignored their mutual encounter in the bath, and is preoccupied with introducing Damian to solid foods and attempting something resembling pre-motherhood exercise. Jason returns to the base looking almost healthy, fattened somewhat by weeks of kefir and reindeer meat. He confidently strolls into her room that night as she’s getting into bed and surprises her by perching himself on the edge of her mattress and unfastening the top buttons of her blouse.

Jason tentatively circles a hot tongue over her nipple before sucking her breast into his mouth. He continues like this for quite some time, for what seems like hours, with Talia lazily massaging his scalp with the tips of her still-short fingernails. It isn’t until the next morning that she realizes the two of them had fallen asleep before they could go any further, and that they still haven’t, technically,  _ done _ anything. 

Talia looks almost comical, like a Delacroix painting with both breasts falling out of her nightshirt, while Jason snores loudly into her armpit. The front of his sweatpants has a dark wet spot, and his boots are still on. She is ashamed to admit to herself that, in the unflattering daylight, she’s thankful to be nearly entirely clothed. 

* * *

One day, when Jason overhears two Shadows gossiping about Damian’s paternity, he storms out in a rage and isn’t seen for two days. Ra’s is hardly concerned; at present they’re located far enough from Ufa that the boy will have to either return to their base or freeze to death in the winter weather.

Talia rehearses her excuses, her apologies.  _ He left me before I found out I was pregnant _ . No, that would be a lie.  _ It was a one-night stand, a lapse in judgement. _ Another lie.  _ I don’t love him anymore _ . Lie.  _ I promise I’m not using you to get back at him. I promise I’m not using you to get him back. _

* * *

What she expects him to do is barge into her room in the middle of the night, shouting and furious, demanding answers. What he does instead, in the early morning, is push the door open with a long creak as she drinks her breakfast tea. Talia, believing herself to be practiced and unflappable, gestures to the chair opposite her. She pours out a second cup of tea, and the dark red liquid seems to blossom out of thin air in the tulip-shaped glass.

What she doesn’t expect him to do is take off his clothes in full view of the window, beginning slowly and purposefully, then suddenly tearing his undershirt from him with urgency. He flings his jeans off with such force that they actually go flying and knock over a teacup, causing Talia to jump from her chair with a yelp. 

In the broad daylight, she can see every puckered gunshot wound, burn scar, uneven patch of hair, each haphazard stitch. He’s erect, and has such a triumphant look on his face that Talia half expects him to pose with his hands on his hips like the Superman, nude and hard in her kitchenette. 

He plucks each spaghetti strap from her shoulder and, in one motion, pushes her nightgown down to her hips, until it falls on its own to the floor. The sunrise from the window is like a spotlight on her dimpled buttocks, on her purpled stretch marks girding her lower belly like tree roots. She lies flat on the mattress and turns her head towards the breakfast table, the fallen teacup now steadily staining the carpet with red droplets. 

Jason lifts her legs up over her head and holds her ankles steady, spreading her into a V-shape. Talia thinks it’s obscene, even for sex. He impatiently pushes himself into her and Talia’s stomach lurches; his two fingers from before haven’t adequately prepared her for the whole girth of him, and she feels like she’s being split in half. Jason, at this point, is oblivious and lets out a contented grunt with each rhythmic thrust. When he opens his eyes to look at her, he’s hypnotized by the swaying of her breasts and it makes Talia want to laugh. When he finishes, his final jut is the most painful; he shoves himself in so deep that their pelvises are completely flush against each other, and it’s a relief when she feels him softening.

Jason leans forward and pecks a small kiss on her cheekbone, and without looking at him, she can feel his mouth curl into a grin. He then lowers himself to a kneel, sucking on her clitoris until she cries. 

* * *

They say the true healing power of holy water comes not from the water itself, but from the strength of the believer’s convictions. At this point, Talia just might have to agree.


End file.
